A satisfying tale that aptly balances teen drama with a bit of magic.
In this YA fantasy, a teenager suspects that the woman next door and her family are witches.
Fifteen-year-old Matt Mitchell and his twin sister, Tina, are still grieving from the loss of their mother. But their depressed father, Sam, wants no reminders of his wife, so he moves the family from Oregon to Hawthorne, Indiana. Matt is a target for high school bullies Clayton Cartwright, Colin O’Connell, and Dylan Jones and hears rumors that his next-door neighbor, Old Lady Hawthorne, is a witch who, years ago, murdered her husband and his lover. But with the Mitchells’ finances tight, Matt offers to tend to his neighbor’s yard. The lady, Vivianne, proves accommodating and quite friendly, notwithstanding some eccentricities. Her niece, Gwendolyn, and her three kids soon leave Maine and move into Vivianne’s home, and Matt quickly befriends the boy his age, Gerallt. But it turns out there may be validity to the witch rumor. The Hawthornes are druids, capable of magic, and Gerallt believes the amulet he wears is a gift from the Celtic goddess Modron. Casting spells against bullies certainly has benefits, but the Hawthornes won’t like Gerallt revealing family secrets to Matt, whom they consider an “outsider.” Firesmith’s (Hell Holes, 2016, etc.) novel, an absorbing tale of two diverse friends, smartly downplays the fantastical elements. Gerallt, for example, views the magic as simply part of his religion and rightly takes offense when Matt suggests the amulet is “some kind of advanced alien tech.” While the book initially centers on Matt and Gerallt versus the bullies, it oddly splits into subplots resembling short stories (complete with their own resolutions): a stolen amulet, the reputed Hawthorne treasure, and a Tina-centric story. The author’s prose is lucid and descriptive, though its most notable quality is the Hawthornes’ pronounced New England lilt (“Gerallt knows bettah than tah call attention tah himself”). The story ends with several addenda, including lists of characters and Maine idioms, and the promise of further adventures with Matt and Gerallt
A satisfying tale that aptly balances teen drama with a bit of magic.Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-72628-315-1
Page Count: 413
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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